Each form of REI needs more of some skills and less of others, butrental operations (buy&hold) needs people skillsall REI needs ability to do research on your own or to find the proper reference material is essentialsome degree of business accumin is required (invoices, POs, simple accounting)You can learn finance and legal stuff on the fly as you begin to need need them.Investments are not a natural endeavor so IMO, an investor is never born aka Calif's Eureka but an acquired set of skills from exercise.

Though I have a college degree, I don't foresee a future in which is plays a large role in my success.

It was also our first introduction into fix and flips with only a passive role--still a learning experience and interesting.

If you're wanting to exercise a brrrr strategy, I recommend you find the right neighborhoods and mail them every month...

If they are reputable and exercise their duties of Loyalty, Care, Accountability etc. their connections are meaningless.Meaning, they are working for you and should have your best interests in mind.  

That is also a great option, but I don't believe you will find as much of #3 in that field; that will likely depend on your role and the company. 

Some of my LOs have escalating prices the further out the exercise happens, but I define the amount.  

Banks today heavily screen, verify who they "work" with in a "vendor"type role, and Includes all banks regardless of size (National, Regional, Community).

@Gino Barbaro I believe that too many people don't develop right mindset... our brain and the way we think is what controls everything in our lives (what you think you become)...what also plays a huge role in becoming successful is who we choose to surround ourselves with....this is a choice. 

Sure, you could go through the exercise and try to chart out the variables of income, taxes, appreciation, recapture of depreciation at the time of sale, time value of money, length of time holding an asset, etc., and you would get different answers in favor of one kind of money or the other depending on the input variables.... but what does that really tell you?